


4 A.M.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Ford's last night on Earth, Friendship, Going Home, M/M, Missing Earth, Wishes, day before the Earth gets destroyed, human emotion, thoughts of humans, vogons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 15:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10221326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Today marks the birthday of Douglas Adams, and I had an idea to write a story from Ford Prefect's point of view. It is the last night of Earth's existance and Ford is finally able to go home after fifteen years of being stuck on the little blue-green planet. But there is a problem, how is Ford going to convince Arthur Dent, his only friend on Earth, to come with him? How will Ford rescue Arthur from the  impending fate of Earth?





	

4 A.M.

By Taylor Bartlett.

 

Ford Prefect sat on his bed, looking intensely at the small black rod-like device that lay unmoving upon the bedside table next to him. For the moment, the black rod lay doarment upon the surface of Ford’s bedside table, no longer glittering and winking with several flashing red lights, as it had been doing a minute or so ago. As he gazed at it, Ford felt a tingle of excitement. After fifteen years, could this evening finally yield some results?

Ford smoothed the covers of the bed absent minded, thinking of precisely what the winking red lights meant. They meant a great deal for him. It meant that after fifteen years, Ford Prefect would be able to go home. He had been stuck down on the insignificant little blue-green planet of Earth for so damned long but finally he would be able to LEAVE. The flashing red lights signalled a ship that was coming closer to the planet. 

Ford had been looking forward to visiting Earth when he had first made his way across the galactic disc on that fateful day. He had, as usual, hailed a passing ship in the normal way. For Ford Prefect, the normal method of hailing a passing ship had been to sneek aboard it without anyone seeing him.

He had spent hours aboard the small transport ship and had rapidly grown bored with the limited   entertainment that had been available to the crew. He had spent the time   browsing his copy of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” wondering how the book’s publishers were able to get away with such short and useless entries.  It was no wonder to him that so many unwary hitchhikers died of unexplained causes. There was very little in terms of actual information within the immense volume that would shed any light on the subject of just how dangerous hitch hiking the galaxy really was. For years, Ford Prefect had made it his sacred and holy duty to change that for the benefit of all hitchhikers, but till that point he had had no luck what so ever.

Once he had arrived on Earth, Ford Prefect’s high hopes had quickly faded. Compared to the planets that he usually visited, Earth was fantastically boring. The native species were rather uninteresting, or at least, the ape-like beings were. Earth did have an enormous variety of plantlife, animals and birds to watch and study though, and Ford had enjoyed that aspect of his research. But aside from that, life on Earth had swiftly settled into a rutine of relative sameness. 

Ford Prefect had expected to stay no more than a week or so-on the tiny blue-green planet, but as days went bye with no signals from a passing ship, he became less and less hopeful that he would be rescued.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and, with a steady and monotonous rhythm, months turned into years. Ford, unable to properly cope with the hopeless situation that he had found himself in, turned to copious amounts of alcohol consumption for help. He had realised that in order to fit in with a large number of Earth’s population, he would have to find some sort of a job that did not involve hitchhiking the galaxy.  Such a thing had been hard to do, as Ford didn’t have a lot of skills that were considered employable by humans. His talents lay outside the boundaries of the Milkyway and he quickly lost himself in a sea of uncertainty.

But there had been one shining light that had illuminated the darkness of Ford’s life for ten of those fifteen gloomy years. That shining light came in the shape of the only friend Ford had managed to make on Earth.

It was   his friend that was the only thing on Ford’s mind as he sat on his bed, eyes fixed firmly on the electronic signalling device that had once again begun its series of on-again-off-again flashing lights.

How was Ford going to get off this planet without explaining his situation to his friend, the man who had been the only solid presence in his earthbound life for a deckade? There was no way that Arthur would believe his stories of life beyond planet Earth. There was no way in hell that he would believe that his long time friend was not from Gilford, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. Nor would he believe that Ford Prefect was not an out of work actor, but a researcher for what had become the most popular travel guide in the galaxy. And what would he say when Ford Prefect told Arthur that his name was not Ford Prefect at all, but something that he had been unable to pronounce all his life?

No. That would not do. The results of telling Arthur all of this secret information would be disasterous. Arthur would more than likely feel betrayed, as humans so often did. He would also more than likely grow very angry at the fact that his friend was trying to feed him what Arthur would describe as a crock of shite. Ford’s deckade and a half’s worth of life experience around humans had taught him that humans were very easily hurt. Their emotions, unlike those of Betelgeusians, were very sensitive and they would remain deeply scarred by painful experiences for a long time. It was a   mindset that he had never understood but nevertheless, he could not, and would not risk his friendship with Arthur Dent for anything. Not for anything.

A wild and seemingly impossible idea entered Ford Prefect’s mind. Once it had entered, the thought refused to leave his brain. It instead settled there and demanded   to be examined. After a moment, Ford did just that and found that this particular thought was rather a good one.

What if he took Arthur with him?

 

Ford Prefect had to admit that this idea had rather a lot of potential. He could think of numerous reasons for taking the rather nervous Earthman with him. Yes. It was certainly an idea that carried a lot of appealing possibilities for Ford. To start with, it would mean that Ford would have a friend to go with him. He would no longer have to travel the galaxy alone and that was a pleasing notion in itself. Secondly, it would provide the Betelgeusian with ample opportunity to explain to Arthur where he came from and what his life entailed and consisted of.  This would hopefully bring about a deeper understanding between them, a thing that Ford had to admit to himself that he wanted desperately.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it would save Arthur Dent from a truely terrible fate. 

Ford had seen the signs and he knew what they meant, even if he did not exactly understand it too well. Planet Earth was in trouble. He knew what ships were heading towards Earth and the knowledge of this sent shivers down Ford Prefect’s spine. The Vogons were coming. That could mean only one thing. Well actually, it could mean any number of things but Ford was willing to bet everything that he owned – which was not very much, that none of those possibilities were good ones. One of those possibilities was clear however. Earth was going to be blown up. It was going to be obliterated and removed from existence, something that nobody on Earth seemed to be aware of. Although that could have been because they did not own signalling devices like he did of course.

Whatever options were open to him, Ford was unwilling to allow his only earthborn friend to die in the blazing inferno of an exploding planet. Whether he ever told Arthur or not, Ford had grown deeply attatched to the lonely Earthman during the past ten years and he didn’t want him to die in fear.

“You’re feeling unusually sentimental this evening,” Ford mused to himself, noting that this was a very Earthly way of thinking. Perhaps the strange thought processes of the surrounding natives were beginning to rub off on him after all. In normal cercumstances, Ford would wish to reject that sentimentality, but he welcomed it now. It was this new sense of ‘human’ emotion that would lead to Ford taking Arthur with him, and that was what he wanted.

Standing up slowly and stretching his arms above his head, Ford pulled back the sheets of his bed and collapsed onto the mattress, suddenly aware of just how tired he was. All this thinking really took it out of a person. Ford briefly noted that in a few hours, he would be off this planet and away to safety before his eyes closed and his mind got ready for a few hours of sleep. .

The illuminated hands of the clock standing on his bedside table showed that the time was 4 A.M. Already the first hints of dawn were appearing in the navy sky as planet Earth prepared to usher forth its final day of existence. This sudden realisation deeply saddened Ford as he allowed his weary mind to ponder it for a while. He missed home and he longed to be off this planet very much. That was very true. And yet, he did not regret any of the fifteen years he had spent walking its streets, its grassy woods and its sunny beeches. He also did not regret the time he had spent talking to the Earthmen and Earthwomen. They had a lot of flaws and characteristics that annoyed him greatly, but he would miss them and in another bout of Earthly sentimentality, he made a mental note to try and save them a place in his heart, however hard that would be.

Ford Prefect was just glad that Arthur would be coming with him. The last thing he recalled before his mind shut down for the remainder of the night was that he would at least have Arthur Dent to enjoy his life with.

A smile stretched across his face as he was pulled into the silence of sleep.

 


End file.
